November 19, 2021 3 min read
Do you want to know how it happened? Let's started!
Our third factory diary starts with the production of prenatal samples. It takes almost more than one month to produce our prenatal samples of RabbotZ, which is more than twice as long as the normal blind box prenatal samples production. The production time of normal blind box prenatal samples is about half a month. But the design complicate level of RabbotZ is 3 times more difficult than that of normal blind boxes, which cause a longer production time and double costs.
1. The first step of producing prenatal samples: Injection moulding
Prenatal sample means to make a sample according to the standard of formal production so that worker can use it to define the only standard in the future production.
First, we need to load our previously finished mold onto the machine and inject our blank RabbotZ.
After the Injection moulding is completed, RabbotZ still needs to be polished because the blank RabbotZ produced by Injection moulding still have some defects, such as some cracks between two parts of the body. Although we have improved our mold to the most ideal state, there will still be some imperfect places. In order to provide fans a nearly perfect RabbotZ, we used a high-speed vibration machine, plus small stones and rolled together with RabbotZ for polishing.
RabbotZ rolled in the machine for about 30 minutes and our final blank RabbotZ was finished. The polished blank RabbotZ is nearly perfect.
2. Spray color
The master blended colors according to the previous samples, which can basically restore the design color, but it still needs to be confirmed on site. Our colleague proofread the colors and adjusted the colors. Due to the fact that most colors of our designs are quite bright, it is hard to achieve the effect we want.
The master was much of professional and solved all of our problems.The glow effect of Hindsight was the most difficult to control. Because the fineness of the glow oil paint determines the final glow effect. We tried five different ways and finally achieved the perfect glow effect of Hindsight.
The left is an undesirable effect during testing; it looks like it is covered with mist. (although it used the finest glow paint.). The right is the final way we choose for Glow Hindsight, and this effect has achieved the desired state which we want to.
3. Pad printing
After spray color stage, pad printing comes. We have already prepared the steel plate for pad printing during the stage of spraying colors. There are flat patterns on the steel plate. We need to use soft rubber to print the designs on RabbotZ layer by layer. The exquisite and complicate designs on RabbotZ are completed by a lot of processes.
In the pad printing stage, many transfer print plates need to be adjusted in time. Many steel plates were adjusted several times in the first printing period. But those adjustments are worth it. We still need to adjust some plates, but they are tiny adjustments, such as the eyes’ position and colors adjustments.
Chromatic Aberration by nuclear-winter. We added a mouth line under his nose to make him more compatible with other RabbotZ. And the overall effect after adjustment is better.
Our steel plates are many times as much as ordinary blind boxes, which cause a double cost. What’s more, many factories have rejected us directly and told us that RabbotZ is too complicate and can’t be produced. But we don’t want to back down and abandon the amazing designs by our artists. We maintain a persistent attitude and realize painting regardless of cost, so it is difficult to see such complicated products as ours on the market now. Our belief is that "as long as we work hard, there is no craft that cannot be achieved."
Is this finished? No, no, no! The left stages will in our next Part Two blog! Stay tuned!